Bangernomics (or, how much is too much per mile?)

[ismellburning]

Morning squad, wanted to open this up to fellow banger drivers.

My 1998 superhatch costs me about 38p per mile to run. That includes the cost of buying the car, every tank of petrol I've ever put in it, tyres, insurance, tax, MOT, the new clutch that went in last year, lightbulbs, the works. That number also assumes that when I get rid of it I'll get absolutely nothing, so it's a worst-case scenario running figure.

For fellow petrolnerds, how do you work out your cost per mile, and for other operators of, er, pre-loved vehicles, what's your theoretical cut-off point, i.e. the cost per mile at which you'll bring the curtain down and buy something else?

[Liokault]

Based on what criteria?

[ismellburning]

I guess based on the fact that a newer car will produce fewer garage bills, and that there must be a tipping point between keeping your existing car running and stomaching constant £300 demands, and chucking the car in favour of something else. Basically interested to know how/if people justify buying cars using, yunno, nerdy spreadsheets and such.

(Not that I do, of course. There are definitely no graphs involved.)

[btsidi]

My supermini was bought new for £11,000
It has cost £1400 for routine servicing, about £12000 in fuel and a few hundred for tyres and brakes.

I make that about 33p a mile over its 77000 miles so far, plus it's probably worth £2500 if I were to sell it.

New car cheaper than banger?

[bullitinhead]

That seems awfully expensive for what is an "cheap" style of motoring
My new merc slk only cost 58ppm over the year I owned it.

Currently working the shed route and havent worked it out yet, bring on the calculator!


Bullit


Edit: well not to bad over the 8000 miles I do per year, works out at
18ppm for the car itself(if at the end of the year is worth nothing)
18ppm for fuel 34mpg
2ppm for insurance
2ppm tax
1ppm servicing (actually less)

So 23ppm if you dont need to change
Awsomely cheap, still doent stop me wanting a new merc on lease

Edited by bullitinhead on Tuesday 10th September 12:32

[bullitinhead]

That seems awfully expensive for what is an "cheap" style of motoring
My new merc slk only cost 58ppm over the year I owned it.

Currently working the shed route and havent worked it out yet, bring on the calculator!


Bullit


Edit: well not to bad over the 8000 miles I do per year, works out at
18ppm for the car itself(if at the end of the year is worth nothing)
18ppm for fuel 34mpg
2ppm for insurance
2ppm tax
1ppm servicing (actually less)

So 23ppm if you dont need to change
Awsomely cheap, still doent stop me wanting a new merc on lease

Edited by bullitinhead on Tuesday 10th September 12:35

[bullitinhead]

That seems awfully expensive for what is an "cheap" style of motoring
My new merc slk only cost 58ppm over the year I owned it.

Currently working the shed route and havent worked it out yet, bring on the calculator!


Bullit


Edit: well not to bad over the 8000 miles I do per year, works out at
18ppm for the car itself(if at the end of the year is worth nothing)
18ppm for fuel 34mpg
2ppm for insurance
2ppm tax
1ppm servicing (actually less)

So 23ppm if you dont need to change
Awsomely cheap, still doent stop me wanting a new merc on lease

Edited by bullitinhead on Wednesday 11th September 09:49

[BigTom85]

My MG ZT will have cost 32p a mile assuming it is worth £0, and I've only had it 3 months and done a major service and repaired lots of niggles.

Anything under 35p a mile is pretty good going I think.

My colleague bought a 1.5DCI 2010 Megane to do 35k a year in, we worked out its cost him 22p a mile including depreciation and everything! Impressive stuff!

[Rumple]

I have never worked it out in anycar I have run.

[aarondbs]

Disregarding insurance my Alfa 156 (now semi retired) has cost £7500.00 in 18 months (17k miles at an average of 19.6mpg, clutch, service parts, tyres an cost of the car) assuming it is worth nothing that works out as 44p per mile..... yikes..

Thank you OP for making me work that out. I'll bet my Amarok and the Swift Sport are not much cheaper though.. (if not more expensive..)

[ismellburning]

So do you chaps include costs that would be incurred on all cars? I.e. I include insurance, tax, the yearly MOT test and so on, all of which I'd have to pay for on either a banger or a much newer car.

(Kudos to the chap with the 32ppm ZT, btw. Lot of car for the money.)

[panholio]

Just worked out my merc c class (220 diesel) which I bought new for comparison.

73ppm.

How are you factoring your purchase price when you don't know when you will sell the car? Just a guess on depreciation?

[cptsideways]

Try to buy a banger with end of life value eg something slightly rare & sought after. Buying run of the mill cars that only scrap for 200 quid is not always the best option.


My Lupo 3L (100mpg thing) costs about 7ppm to fuel, it cost me a couple of grand to buy, it will always break for that all day long & more possibly. With tax & an annual oil change I reckon its about 10ppm to run! It also came on a new set of snow tyres on the Magnesium alloys


I tend to buy snotters with long mot/long tax/good tyres etc, that is the main way to keep costs uber cheap.

[BigTom85]

ismellburning said:

So do you chaps include costs that would be incurred on all cars? I.e. I include insurance, tax, the yearly MOT test and so on, all of which I'd have to pay for on either a banger or a much newer car.

(Kudos to the chap with the 32ppm ZT, btw. Lot of car for the money.)

I include EVERYTHING, every single penny, insurance, tax, MOT, washer fluid, fuel the LOT.

I expect my ZT to settle down to about 28ppm btw Its a 1.8T, not a diesel (or a V6)

[320touring]

my 328 LPG daily shed had a total cost of 0.20/mile over the 25k I owned it. Exc Insurance (never have included it as varies so much)

Details are here http://www.spritmonitor.de/en/cost_analysis/505509...

I operate on a fairly basic "any single repair more than 250" means ta ta. Stuff like brake pads/disks or tyres are not included in this.


Its now lying in bits as it gives up its heart to my brother's car.


Replacement is my e30- current first tank puts costs of fuel at 0.175/mile, plus tax etc skewing the figures as only done 420 miles

[Greg_D]

also your mileage will vastly skew your results. my mx5 commuter only does 6000pa and comes out at 60ppm, but if i did 'average' mileage of 12kpa that goes down to 41ppm.

[247RPM]

I have got an estimated 54ppm next year for my Rover 75 1.8, as a 19 y/o I think this is pretty good! I've allowed money for RAC etc and repairs so could be lower. Main cost for me is still insurance -makes up 45% of my total costs.

[Condi]

Fag packet figures suggest <20ppm all in. 13ppm in fuel, 3ppm insurance, 2ppm in tax, no depreciation. The other 2ppm covers servicing and MOT for the year.

In truth it is worth about double what I paid for it, but that is hard to quantify per mile. So far Ive done 25,000 miles or so and its worth about £400 more than I paid, so offset about 1.6ppm.

306 HDi.

[55palfers]

Any ideas how much it costs per mile on a bus?

[Willy Nilly]

The cost per mile will be effected massively by the total annual miles you do. Low annual mileage drivers will have a higher cost per mile than the high annual mileage drivers.